CONVERS(1)

NAME
convers - Ping-Pong convers for wampes

SYNOPSIS
convers [ -c channel ] [ -s host:service ]

DESCRIPTION

convers
    is the user interface to conversd. Compared to a standard telnet connection to port 3600 there are some enhancements like the gnu readline library (command line history), shell escapes, and startup command file execution. OPTIONS If the option -c

~/.conversrc
    user's file of startup commands

CONVERS User-Commands

/?  Print help information

/Away [text]
    Mark user as being away

/ACtion text
    write action to channel

/ALl text
    send text to all users

/Beep
    toggle Beep-Mode

/Bell
    toggle Beep-Mode

/BYe
    Terminate the convers session

/Channel n
    Switch to channel n

/CHARset [in [out]]
    Change terminal emulation (default ansi)

/Destinations
    List reachable ping-pong hosts

/Exit
    Terminate the convers session

/EXClude user text
    Send Text to all on channel except user

/Help [command]
    Print help information

/HOsts
    List reachable ping-pong hosts

/Invite user
    Invite user to join your channel

/IMsg user text
    Send Text to all on channel except user

/IWrite user text
    Send Text to all on channel except user

/Join
    Switch to channel n

/Links [args]
    List or setup links (see

/LISt
    List all channels and topics

/LAst user
    List last appearances of user

/LEave [channel]
    Leaves specified or default channel

/Msg user|#channel text
    Send message to a user or joined channel

/ME text
    write action to channel

/MOde #channel options
    Set channel options

/NOtify [calls]
    Send notice if one of calls signs on

/NOTE [text]
    set personal description

/Operator [number]
    become Operator

/Personal [text]
    set personal description

/PRompt abcd
    prompts a=query b=std c=ctrl-g d=ctrl-h

/Quit
    Terminate the convers session

/QUEry [user]
    Start/End a private conversation

/Send user text
    Send a private message to user

/Topic [#chan] [text]
    set channel topic

/Users [*|A|L|Q]
    List users and their channel numbers

/UPtime
    how long is this conversd up ?

/Verbose
    toggles verbose Flag

/VERSion
    show version information

/Who [*|A|L|Q]
    List users and their channel numbers

/WIdth [value]
    set/show terminal width

/WRite user text
    Send a private message to user

CONVERS
help <command>

all If you are in /query mode, a text written with /all at the front will be displayed as a normal convers text writtento all users on this channel.

away
    /away sets an away-text for the other users. called with no additional arguments, you are marked as being back again.

beep
    The beep command toggles a warning bell (^G) being sent before every message coming from another user. This command really is a subset of the /prompt command, see there.

char
    With this command, you can tell the convers deamon which type of umlauts you prefer to use. The Syntax is /char [intype [outtype]]. For example, if you work on an Atari st you could say: "/char atari atari". If you use a pc and like to write your own umlauts in TeX style, "/char tex pc" may work. Play a bit around with this feature ! Special Thanks to Thommy, <dl9sau@,thynet.sub.org> (Inter-net mail) <dl9sau@db0sao.ampr.org> (AmPR-Net mail) who wrote this nice feature. Suggestions to this feature should be redirected to him :-)

dest
    All Pingpong hosts in the network being connected to each other are listed. The numbers shown in the list are response times in seconds.

excl
    The exclude command is the opposite of the /msg command. You can send messages to all users on the channel except the one given as the first parameter. Internally these messages are sent as private messages to the users, so links are flooded a bit more :-)

help
    The help command may be invoked with an additional parameter. I believe you hacked in "help help" to see this, right ? :-). better try out help options that are followed by an additional command. BTW: the preceding "/" must not be given for the command's name in help command.

invi
    An invitation tho the named user is sent. The invite is passed through all convers nodes in the net. If the user is on another channel, he will be able to join your private channel. If he is online on a unix machine, he will receive the invitation message via standard broadcast by conversd. In the latter case he will be unable to join a private channel directly.

join
    Join another channel. Unlike other other conversd implementations Ping-Pong- conversd supports multiple channel joins the same time. Thus the old channel is not left. You may do this by invoking "/leave".

last
    The last sign on and sign of of the specified user is diplayed. You must at know his name then the data base will be searched to look up the login/out time. Special thanks to Wolfgang Tremmel for his basic work on this item His email adresses are <dh2paf@db0sao.ampr.org> and <tremmel@ira.uka.de>.

leav
    Invoking this command you will leave the actual channel or the specified channel. If the given channel is your last existence in the convers channel, you'll quit the whole program.

link
    The current link state is displayed. In the standard version, host name, link state, link round trip times, neighbour revision codes and statetime followed by time of next try and count of connect tries (on disconnected or connecting links) are shown, connected lines print out their queue lengt and total transmit statistics. If you are sysop, you may also set up or remove links at runtime. Adding a link might happen like this:"/l dc6iq-u 2 4 unix:/tcp/.sockets/netcmd connect tcp dc6iq 3600" In this command a host called dc6iq-u will be entered into group 2 by by quality 4. The link will be established by using WAMPES.

list
    All channels, their topics (if set), flags (if some) and users are displayed.

me  If you want to display an action you take, you might use this command. E.g. entering the line "/me yawns" all connected users in this channel will see a message like: "*** dc6iq yawns"

mode
    The mode command is one of the most complicated ones. It is invoked with /mode <channel> <+|-><t|i|s|m|p|l|o<name>>. Flags may be a set of the following: t - channel topic may be set by channel operators only i - channel is invisible for users not on it s - channel is secrect, only its number not displayed m - channel is moderated, only channel-operators may talk p - channel is private, invitation needed to join here l - channel is local, no text forwarding to other nodes (NYI) o<name> - make <name> a channel operator. The plus indicates an option to be set, a dash resets the option. A combination of + and - is allowed so the following command will work: "/mode 69 -s+todc6iq". Channel 69 is no longer secret, but topics may be set only by channel operators. In addition the user dc6iq becomes a channel operator.

msg Send a text to one special user or a joined channel. If the message should be redirected to a channel, The command must be invoked in this syntax: "/msg #<channel> <text>". The adressee (if user) can indicate the private character of the message due to additional asterisks in his received lines. a mesage written by dc6iq to dc1ik looks like this: "/m dc1ik This is a Test" will be received by dc1ik like this: "<*dc6iq*>: This is a test".

noti
    You are notified if one person out of the notification list appears on any channel in this convers. E.g."/notify + dc1ik" adds the user dc1ik to the notification list, "/notify - db4ut" removes him from the list. The list is initially treated as if a plus "+"-sign was given, multiple lists may be specified. The following command would be legal and would result in adding dc1ik, db4ut and dg3kcr to the list, while removing dc6iq and dh2paf: "/notify dh2paf + dc1ik db4ut - dc6iq dh2paf +dg3kcr" Removing non-members to the list is ignored.

oper
    Invoking this command, a random number from 0..99999 will be displyed. Take each digit, multiply with the corresponding digit in the secret number at the configuration file, sum it and enter the number by invoking "/oper <n>".

pers
    A brief description can be set up, accessible to all users via the "/who"- command. A typical Message looks like this: "/pers Fred, Buechig, JN49fb".

prom
    The prompt command takes up to four arguments in one concatenated string. Thus "/prompt abcd" will set up "a" for the query prompt, "b" for the standard prompt. "d" is the character to remove the prompt, and "c" is displayed whenever a text is sent to you. Normally you make "c" a control-G (beep char) and "d" a backspace or delete character (control-h or 0x7f).

quer
    The username given as argument will be the only recipient for all further texts. They are send as private messages (just like /m). With no optional argument, the further texts go into the whole channel again.

quit
    Passing this command to conversd, you will retire from the famous Ping-Pong conversation. I hope you enjoyed this stuff :-)

topi
    A brief description of the channel topic can be set. Other users can look it up with the "/who quick" or "/list" commands. If the channel number is omitted, the topic will be set to the current channel, else to the desired one. if no #channel is given, the topic will appear on the current channel, if speci- fied, the topic on that channel will be set (only if youre logged on to that channel).

upti
    The uptime command tells us how long this conversd is up and running.

verb
    The verbose flag is toggled. You will be flooded with information if you enable this feature.

vers
    Print out version information to this software.

who The who command supports up to four switches. An "a" will diplay all users and their Away texts, if set. A "l" generates a _long_ list containing personal texts, away texts and Queue informations. A "q" gives a brief list. An asterisk "*" displays the users on your current channel in normal mode.

whoi
    This is a question to conversd. "/whois dc6iq" will show all available informations about dc6iq, i.e. joined channels, personal description, away message and times.

widt
    Tell conversd about your screen width. Then formatted messages will use the entire screen. It is set to 80 by default.

AUTHORS
The Ping-Pong convers package was written by Fred Baumgarten (dc6iq@insu1.etec.uni-karlsruhe.de). Convert.c was written by Thomas Osterried (dl9sau@fub46.zedat.fu-berlin.de). Manual page by Michael Meifert (mime@dk3hg.hanse.de).